The basic concept of image enhancement systems is very old. People have often used visual aids to help them better image how they or some object would look if a certain change were made to their appearance. Before the advent of video cameras and graphic computer systems people used to hold a piece of clothing in front of them as they stood in a mirror to better imagine what they would look like with the piece of clothing on. Others might cut and paste a picture of a certain type of hair style over a photograph of their face to better imagine what a change in hair style would look like before taking the sometimes emotionally frightening step of drastically changing their hair style.
With the advent of video machines and graphic computers image enhancement has become much easier and much more realistic. In recent years image enhancement systems have been developed that enable one to make an image of a scene with a video camera, and then use computer graphics to superimpose images on top of part of the scene, to change the color of all a portion of the original or the superimposed images, or to draw desired changes on any portion of the original or superimposed image.
Such image enhancement has been used for many purposes: including letting architects, landscapers, and interior decorators better imagine and convey to their customers how changes to a house, yard, or office would look; including letting stores indicate how various clothes or glasses would look on customers without the need to try them all on; and including letting beauty saloons, hair stylists, and cosmetic sales people demonstrate to clients how they would look with different hair styles, hair length, hair color and make-up
This last use of image enhancement, that of letting people see how they would look with different hair styles and make-up, has generated considerable commercial interest. As a result, several facial image enhancement systems have been developed in the prior art. Although these prior art systems represent a considerable improvement over cutting and pasting paper images of hair styles over images of a customer's face or of letting the customer merely experiment with various make-up schemes, they are not as easy to use as many potential customers for facial image enhancement systems desire.